Friday, October 21, 2011

"I have been on LinkedIn for six months and it hasn't done a thing for me...."

This was a comment from the audience where I spoke recently. When I returned to my office later that day, I took a look at the profile of the person who made the comment, and here's what I found:

- no recent activity- none. No new connections, no new groups, no information posts. Nothing.
- profile- bare bones. No decent job description or company description, the "Experience" section only had the most recent position (read: no history).

In short, they might be a "member" of LinkedIn, but they are doing absolutely nothing to participate and become noticed.

This is like joining the key trade association for your niche and not attending meetings or networking functions.

Think of it as a "drive by" membership, where you can drive by the networking event, honk and wave when you are in the general vicinity of the venue, and hope someone notices you.

"I have been on LinkedIn for six months and it hasn't done a thing for me...." is the swan song of the couch potato, the person who always has something impeding the "thought meets action" process. LinkedIn doesn't work unless you do.

In this case, the impediment is the assumption that simply by being on LinkedIn will lead to results, when what it will really take is to stop whining and start working smarter: get active and get found!

10/24/11 Update:

On October 18 Market Connections released the 2nd annual "2011 Social Media in the Public Sector" study. Among many other findings, the study showed a dramatic rise in the use of social media year over year, with more than 90% of government employees using some form of social media- an increase of 41%.

Another finding was that 70% of government employees used LinkedIn and 93% of contractors were using LinkedIn, both big gains over the previous year.